Autumn grain procurement gets off to a steady start, with notable progress in grain storage technology
October 16, 2015, is the 35th World Food Day designated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, coinciding with the 25th National Grain-Saving and Food-Saving Publicity Week. This year's National Grain-Saving and Food-Saving Publicity Week theme is “Promoting Grain and Benefiting Farmers into Every Household”. At present, autumn grain procurement is unfolding across various regions. Grain departments are actively taking various measures to make it convenient for farmers to sell grain and to protect farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain, but at the same time they also face problems such as falling grain prices and insufficient storage capacity.
A bumper autumn harvest is in sight. As this year's mid-to-late rice and corn are gradually harvested and brought to market, autumn grain procurement has begun. This year's autumn grain procurement faces problems such as falling grain prices and insufficient warehouse capacity. Can autumn grain procurement and storage proceed smoothly, is it convenient for farmers to sell grain, and can farmers achieve a bumper harvest and good returns? Reporters conducted in-depth research.
Autumn grain procurement gets off to a steady start
In late autumn, the 700 mu of rice of Li Fang, a family farm owner in Huangtuo Village, Tangmazhai Town, Liaoyang County, Liaoning, has basically been harvested. Holding newly harvested rice grains in both hands, she told reporters that this year's rice harvest was abundant, with yield reaching about 1,500 jin per mu, and both quality and yield higher than last year. She hopes good grain can fetch a good price.
⟦NL> Autumn grain accounts for more than 70% of the annual grain output, and autumn grain procurement is the highlight of annual grain procurement. At present, autumn grain procurement is unfolding across various regions and has gotten off to a good start. New mid-to-late indica rice from the south has come to market, and Anhui, Sichuan, Hubei, Henan and other places have already launched the minimum purchase price policy for mid-to-late rice. According to statistics, as of September 30, 6 major grain-producing areas including Jiangsu had purchased a cumulative 2.9 billion jin of mid-to-late indica rice, an increase of 800 million jin year-on-year.
It is understood that this year China will continue to implement the temporary corn purchase and storage policy in the three northeastern provinces and Inner Mongolia. Temporary corn storage procurement will start on November 1, with a listed purchase price of 1 yuan per jin. Sinograin Corporation will serve as the main body implementing the policy, with COFCO Group, Chinatex Corporation and AVIC Industry Group as supplementary forces, undertaking procurement and storage tasks entrusted by Sinograin Corporation. At the same time, this year's temporary corn purchase and storage will strictly implement national quality standards. Corn that does not meet the quality requirements stipulated shall be purchased under the organization of local governments.
Zhou Yanwu, owner of the Dalan Family Farm in Halaha Village, Zhuchengzi Town, Dehui City, Jilin, planted more than 2,100 mu of corn this year, and now more than half of the corn has been harvested. Zhou Yanwu said that due to the dual impact of lower corn yields and a reduced temporary storage price, corn planting profits have been squeezed to almost nothing. He is not in a hurry to sell corn now and plans to wait until the corn is dried and then sell it at an opportune time according to market conditions. What he cares about now is how the local area will strictly implement the national minimum grain purchase price policy and procurement standards, and he is watching how other large grain-growing households respond.
At present, state-owned grain purchasing and marketing enterprises remain the leading force in autumn grain procurement, shouldering the important task of the main channel for grain procurement. A relevant person in charge of Sinograin Corporation said that as the main body entrusted by the state to implement policy, it takes strict policy implementation as its first priority, strictly controls warehouse quality, uses instrument testing, and uniformly implements a standardized warehouse cleaning process; it strictly controls policy implementation and fully implements the quality and price policy, neither lowering grades or pressing prices to harm farmers' interests nor raising grades or prices to harm the state's interests. It is understood that in order to make it convenient for farmers to sell grain, Sinograin generally carries out “one-stop service”, allowing farmers to sell “worry-free grain”; strengthens management of the fund payment process and strictly prevents “IOUs”; and carries out various services such as appointment inspection, appointment procurement, order procurement and door-to-door procurement, extending services to the fields.
For various reasons, the quantity of summer grain purchased this year declined compared with previous years. According to statistics from the National Grain Administration, as of September 30, 11 major producing areas including Hebei had purchased a cumulative 132.6 billion jin of wheat, a decrease of 14.6 billion jin year-on-year; 8 major producing areas including Jiangxi had purchased a cumulative 15.9 billion jin of early indica rice, a decrease of 1.1 billion jin year-on-year. “The main reason for the relatively small summer grain procurement is that continuous rain during harvest in some major producing areas caused a relatively large number of wheat kernels not meeting the imperfect kernel standard.” said Qin Yuyun, deputy inspector of the Regulation Department of the National Grain Administration.
Total warehouse capacity continues to grow
The issue of warehouse capacity is an unavoidable topic in autumn grain procurement. In recent years, China's grain output has been abundant year after year, making the warehouse capacity problem more prominent: overall warehouse capacity is tight, and in some areas it is seriously insufficient.
In fact, in recent years China's grain storage facility construction has made considerable achievements. By the end of 2013, China had 19,000 various types of grain storage enterprises spread across urban and rural areas, with total warehouse capacity exceeding 300 million tons; the layout of grain storage facilities has been continuously optimized and improved, basically forming a modern grain storage and logistics system with grain logistics bases such as Dalian Beiliang Port, Guangdong Xinsha Port and Shanghai Minsheng Port as hubs, grain center warehouses at all levels as nodes, and grain collection warehouses across the country as the foundation; the conditions of grain storage facilities have been continuously improved, with tall flat warehouses, shallow round warehouses and silos becoming mainstream warehouses. The single warehouse capacity of grain depots has reached 5,000 tons or even more than 30,000 tons, and modern warehouse types account for more than 60% of all warehouses.
However, existing grain warehouse capacity in many places still cannot meet the needs of grain procurement. The three northeastern provinces are important major grain-producing areas in China, and the warehouse capacity problem is especially prominent there. Kaiyuan City in Liaoning is a major grain-producing city. This year, the sown area of grain crops was 1.13 million mu, and the total annual grain output is expected to reach 758,800 tons, with autumn grain procurement expected to be about 900,000 tons. Guo Wanku, director of the Kaiyuan City Grain Bureau in Liaoning, said they face enormous warehouse capacity pressure this year. If temporary corn storage procurement is launched, procurement is expected to be 400,000 tons, with a warehouse capacity gap of about 200,000 tons. They are somewhat anxious.
A relevant person in charge of Sinograin said that in order to prepare well for autumn grain procurement and storage in Northeast China, they have fully tapped the existing warehouse capacity of Sinograin and COFCO, Chinatex and AVIC Industry under the “one main and three auxiliary” arrangement as well as locally entrusted enterprises. At the same time, according to procurement needs, they are promoting the application of steel-structure “thousand-ton bins” that have fireproof functions, are conducive to preservation and are quick to build, striving to meet procurement warehouse capacity needs. At present, Sinograin has prepared 45 million tons of autumn grain procurement warehouse capacity in Heilongjiang Province, where warehouse capacity pressure is prominent. At the same time, as the national “Grain Security Project” has been comprehensively advanced in the past two years, grain procurement, storage and supply guarantee capacity is being accelerated. It is understood that the task of building modern grain depots with 50 million tons of warehouse capacity will be completed within this year, which is of great significance for alleviating insufficient warehouse capacity.
Notable progress in grain storage technology
To ensure grain storage security, the potential lies in science and technology, and the fundamental path also lies in science and technology.
At present, China's level of applied grain storage technology is among the world's leading. In 2010, the “four-in-one” new grain storage technology won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, and grain warehouse capacity using this new technology has reached 160 million tons. Breakthrough progress has been made in the research, development and industrialization of new technologies such as green storage, intelligent warehousing, electronic information, rapid testing, new energy utilization and biological pest control. Grain storage is transforming from the safe storage stage of “no pests, no mold, no rodents or birds, no accidents” to the ecological storage stage of “green, ecological, intelligent, efficient”. The “four-in-one” grain storage technologies of mechanical ventilation, circulation fumigation, grain cooling and grain condition monitoring, widely used in grain depots across the country, have effectively reduced grain loss and waste.
In a grain depot storing soybeans at the Zhuozhou Directly Subordinate Depot of Central Grain Reserves, the person in charge of the depot told reporters that after the grain is loaded into the warehouse, once the grain surface is leveled and measurement and control sensors and walkway boards are installed, the remote grain condition monitoring system can automatically detect and reflect grain condition information. Warehouse management personnel sitting in the monitoring center can conduct real-time monitoring of grain condition changes in each warehouse. The remote grain condition monitoring system will automatically display results and upload data, thus enabling grain condition diagnosis and remote supervision.
A relevant person in charge of the National Grain Administration introduced that in recent years, national grain departments have implemented the farmer scientific grain storage project. The promotion and use of new-type scientific grain storage bins has greatly reduced farmers' grain storage losses, bringing the average farmer household grain storage loss rate down from 8% to about 1.5%. The 8.17 million sets of grain storage bins already promoted can reduce farmers' grain storage losses by 1.8 billion jin each year. Reducing losses is equivalent to increasing grain output, equivalent to adding invisible high-quality farmland, and saves large amounts of water resources and labor costs. In fact, after farmers store grain scientifically, to a certain extent it alleviates the pressure of insufficient warehouse capacity for procurement and storage enterprises, and during natural disasters and other emergencies, it can provide local emergency grain supply guarantees.
It is understood that the farmer scientific grain storage project already implemented by grain departments enables farmers to reduce grain losses each year and directly increase grain-selling income by 2.3 billion yuan. At the same time, farmers can also sell grain at an opportune time according to market conditions, choosing to sell at the most ideal market price and achieving additional income through seasonal price differences.
At present, China's grain departments are combining the construction of 100 billion jin of new warehouse capacity, promoting a complete set of new grain storage technologies based on horizontal ventilation, safe and reasonable utilization technology for wheat with excessive vomitoxin, inventory grain identification codes, moderate processing technology for edible vegetable oil, and so on. The application of these new technologies will have a major impact on grain storage, grain saving and loss reduction, and more.